


Worlds Away

by Amedia



Category: The Wizard of Oz & Related Fandoms, Tin Man
Genre: M/M, Mention of Adora Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amedia/pseuds/Amedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ambrose returns from a strange journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal from March 19 to 24, 2010. Many thanks to my beta-reader, TODS.

It had been six months since Ambrose had vanished as entirely as if he had dropped off the face of the O.Z. He had checked out a car, left for Central City one morning to pick up laboratory supplies, and never came back. No one had seen him since.

The Queen had sent her best agents everywhere: into the Realm of the Unwanted, into the Deadly Desert, into the Mountains at the Edge of the World. Cain had traced Ambrose's movements up to the point of his disappearance, but could find no further clues. He had gone out riding many a time, trying to picture just the right spot where his eccentric friend might have chosen to stop and then become distracted. All to no avail. Hope began to flag as summer turned to fall; hope faded as the dying embers of autumn gave way to winter.

And then, one bitter snowswept evening, as Cain was pacing the circumference of the Northern Palace, a figure in the distance, barely distinguishable in the twilight, resolved itself into a beloved form. Ambrose, bedraggled and on foot, wrapped in a heavy hooded cloak, plodded up to the palace gates.

Cain brushed past the startled guards and grasped Ambrose by the shoulders, looking into the pale, strained face, the weary eyes. "It _is_ you," he breathed, hardly able to speak, and wrapped Ambrose in his arms, afraid that if he let go, Ambrose would vanish like an apparition. Feeling Ambrose return the embrace, Cain allowed himself to believe that his friend was really back.

Cain finally released Ambrose. "You look exhausted," he said, nodding toward the flagstone path leading up to the palace entrance. "Shall I send for a car?"

Ambrose shook his head. "I can walk that far. It's so good to be back in familiar surroundings."

Cain took Ambrose's arm. "Lean on me," he said fondly. His heart leapt at the ready smile on Ambrose's face; so often he had feared that his dearest friend, if he ever did return, would be broken. Once they were inside the gates, still within sight of the guards, Cain put out a hand to stop Ambrose, took his chilled face in both hands, and kissed him on the lips. There was the briefest moment of hesitation, and then Ambrose leaned in and Cain felt him relax.

"I'm guessing you're happy to see me," Ambrose said dryly when Cain released him, and they both laughed as they began to walk together toward the palace.

The guards had phoned the palace with the news of Ambrose's return, and a little group had gathered to greet Cain and Ambrose. The Queen came forward and took Ambrose's gloved hands in her own. "It's so good to have you back. You must be chilled to the bone," she said. "Come inside and I'll have a fire laid on." She led them into an elegant reception room, pausing to speak quietly to a servant, who bowed and left. Another servant hastened up and took Ambrose's cloak.

Ambrose smiled. "It's good to see you too, your Majesty," he said. "You look beautiful. Especially the hair." She smiled, patting a dark curl into place. Ambrose remained standing until the Queen seated herself, then settled into a seat near the fireplace, where a servant was hastily preparing a fire. He began to take off his gloves, but the Queen held out a hand to stop him.

"Please, leave your gloves on until it gets warmer, my dear," she said. "The cap and scarf, too. I can see you're still shivering."

"Thank you, your Majesty," said Ambrose gratefully. He looked around the room. "I see you've redecorated! Very nice."

The Queen was about to answer when DG and Azkadellia burst in, both speaking at once.

"We were so worried!"

"Where have you been all this time?"

"Hey, Princesses!" said Cain, holding up a hand. "He's had a hard day. Month. Half-annual. Let's not all jump on him at once."

"It's all right, Wyatt," said Ambrose with a tired smile. He stood and gathered the two princesses into his arms. "I missed you both so much," he murmured.

Finally he released them and stepped back. "Az, I haven't seen you looking so well in ages. I'm so glad! And DG, you look so much at home." Azkadellia caught DG's eye and raised an eyebrow; DG gave the faintest of shrugs. Ambrose continued without noticing. "Perhaps I should go away more often."

"Don't you dare say that," scolded Az gently.

"You haven't had to live with Mr. Cain for the last six months!" DG added.

Ambrose looked at Cain, who wasn't smiling. "I'm sorry, Wyatt," he said earnestly, reaching for Cain's hand.

Cain squeezed his hand. "It's okay."

Ambrose smiled and then looked around again. "Say, where's Raw?"

"The Viewer Ambassador?" the Queen said. "You want to see him?"

"Well, of course!" said Ambrose.

"I'll summon him now," said the Queen, reaching for a silken tasseled cord. "I'm sure he can be here by tomorrow." Just then, a servant came in, bearing a tray from which arose steam and a delicious aroma. He brought it directly to Ambrose and set it before him. "I thought you might be hungry," the Queen said with a smile. "We've just had supper ourselves, so please don't stand on ceremony."

"Thank you kindly," said Ambrose, taking off his gloves and diving in. After a few minutes of near silence, he set down his spoon and looked around. "I suppose you want to know where I've been," he said thoughtfully.


	2. Chapter 2

Cain smiled with affection. "We figured you'd get around to it eventually."

Ambrose nodded slowly. "I wish I could tell you. I'm honestly not sure where I've been, and I honestly didn't believe that I would ever find my way home, even with this." He reached into a waistcoat pocket and pulled out a translucent box that glowed from within with a kaleidoscope of constantly-shifting colors. "I can't wait to show it to Tutor," he added brightly.

"What is that thing?" asked DG.

"This device is how I found my way here," said Ambrose. "I call it a Trans-Axial Home Dimension Locator. It helped me TAHDL home, as it were." He looked around hopefully to see if the others got the joke, but they were still staring, mesmerized, at the colors that flickered just under the TAHDL's translucent surface.

Azkadellia spoke first. "Are you saying that you were trapped in another dimension?" she asked.

"Several, actually," Ambrose said with a nod. "You see, I set out from this very palace... I don't know, some months ago?"

"Six months," said Cain.

Ambrose nodded. "Yes. It was summer then. I went to Central City to obtain some supplies for my laboratory. I remember checking a motorcar out of the palace garage. They offered me a driver; I suppose in hindsight it was a mistake to turn them down. I had no trouble getting to the shop..."

He trailed off for a moment and Cain supplied, "Arcane Apparatus Incorporated." Pulling a notebook out of his pocket, he flipped to a page near the beginning. "The owner's name is Aloysius Vissen, and he delivered to you twenty grams of lab-grade Moritanium and the Antique Aethera Mechanism, which, I was told, is a new calculating instrument for historical astronomy. From there you went to 21600 West Central Avenue on the outskirts of the city, the site of the Scientists' Association, where you have member privileges. You went into one of the private rooms, closed the door behind you, and never came out." He closed the notebook.

Ambrose beamed. "Exactly! I had reserved the room and even brought along a toolkit because I knew that I simply would not be able to resist opening up the package to play with my new toy. I mean, to examine my paraphernalia." He grinned sheepishly. "The outside of the astronomical calculating device looked exactly like what I had expected from the description in the store catalogue. There was a set of dials for selecting an historical year, month, and day, and a display that would read out the positions of the moons, planets, and stars on that date. I just couldn't figure out how such a small mechanism could store all that information and have the computing power to produce it on demand."

"Let me guess," DG said with an affectionate grin. "You just had to take the whole thing apart, didn't you?"

Ambrose smiled back at her. "You know me too well, Princess! That's exactly what I did. I opened up the case expecting to see a complex assortment of gears, or perhaps a miniaturized reasoning-engine. But when I opened it up..." his face grew dreamy as if he were reliving an astonishing revelation.

"What was in it?" Cain asked.

"Magic!" Ambrose said. "I was able to glimpse a magical energy field inside. It's what you see in here, actually." He waved the TAHDL. "When I looked more closely into the interior, I was also able to see a very small magical generator. It was not at all what I was expecting, and it took me a little while to figure out how it all worked. The controls on the outside of the box transmit the requested time period to the magical generator, and the inside of the box actually travels to that time period. I lifted out the generator and as I expected, I also found a set of astronometric sensors inside that connected to the display on the outside. These sensors would detect the positions of the stars and planets as they were at the time inside the box and transmit that information to the display on the outside."

"So there was no actual calculation going on, was there?" asked Azkadellia.

Ambrose smiled. "None. The device would display the exact position of the stars on a particular date in history by actually going back to that time and obtaining the information directly. A time machine like that isn't a theoretical impossibility; what truly piqued my curiosity was the fact that it was able to communicate the data from its sensors to the display regardless of their relative displacement in time."

"I noticed right away that the temporal field generator did not include a dimensional stabilizer. However, it was so small, and drew so little power, that I figured it probably didn't need one to accomplish its very specific task.

"While I was examining the mechanism, I suddenly found myself spinning in darkness, a most baffling and unpleasant sensation. It lasted only a few moments before I landed with quite a thud on my... ahem, dignity. That was when I realized that I had left the package of Moritanium on the table next to the mechanism! The magical field had been drawing energy from the Moritanium the whole time, and the resulting power surge must have catapulted me… somewhere.

"I looked around and saw that I was sitting next to a brick road, not unlike the Old Road, but entirely smooth, as if new or at least well-tended, and very bright yellow. I still had all the pieces of the mechanism, my toolkit, and the Moritanium, but there was no sign of the Scientists' Association. In fact, there weren't any buildings nearby at all."

"Had you traveled into the past, then?" asked the Queen.

Ambrose nodded. "Exactly, your Majesty. I estimate that I landed in the same spot geographically from which I had left, but at some time in the past. Central Avenue is, after all, the name for the portion of the Old Road that goes through Central City and its suburbs. Indeed, I soon had a very good clue to the exact time.

"Off in the distance, I spotted a group of four people traveling away from me. They were instantly recognizable to anyone with half a brain." He chuckled. "There was a girl in a gingham dress, with blond hair and silver shoes—that was your ancestress, of course, your Majesty. The one DG is named for. She was accompanied by the Scarecrow, Nick Chopper, and the Cowardly Lion, all looking as if they had stepped out of the illustrations in my fifth-form history book."

"That's incredible!" said DG.

"Did you talk to them?" asked Azkadellia.

"I tried," said Ambrose, "but they were too far away. I shouted, and for a moment the Lion turned around and looked at me, almost as if he recognized me, but then he turned back around and went on with the others. Then they all shimmered like a heat mirage, and when they came back into focus, they looked different. The biggest difference was in Dorothy Gale herself. She was now an older girl with long dark hair and sparkling red shoes. Oh! And there was only one sun."

"Weird!" said DG.

"I was still trying to figure out the more subtle differences among her companions when the phenomenon happened again, and afterward, she was a young woman. She and her companions were all human, even the Lion! They all had dark skin, and the Road seemed to be leading through something like the Realm of the Unwanted instead of the countryside.

"I realized then what must be happening. I was no longer moving in time, but I was slipping sideways from one dimension to another.

"I took a few steps off the Road, intending to sit down and figure out how to stabilize the device dimensionally. I took three steps away from the Road without a problem, but when I began to take a fourth, I ran into—I don't know how to describe it—something like a travel storm, all gray and whirling and quite impenetrable. I stepped back immediately and the sensation went away. I sensed that if I left the Road, I would find myself lost forever in the utter chaos of infinite possibilities. Indeed, something told me that I needed to stay on the brick road, whatever color or condition it was in, and that it would somehow lead me home. DG, weren't you the one who told me that 'all of life's answers can be found along the old road'?"

"Did I say that?" DG asked. "I'm flattered you remember."

Ambrose looked puzzled for a moment, then continued. "It's such a relief to be home. I was afraid I'd never make it."

Cain leaned forward and squeezed his arm. "We're glad you're home, too," he said warmly.

"Let me see, where was I?" Ambrose said, pleasantly disconcerted. "Oh, yes. The Road. My first priority was to get the device partially stabilized pretty quickly so that I wasn't being shuttled across dimensions every few minutes. Then it was just a matter of finding a way to steer it. To cut a long story short, I spent the next several months traveling along the Old Road and trying to refine the device so that I could use it to get home."

DG, predictably, was interested in the engineering aspect. "You couldn't have had everything you needed in that little toolkit, could you?"

"No, you're quite right," said Ambrose." Fortunately, I had some helpful encounters. "Once, when I was tinkering with it, the mechanism hiccupped back about a generation or so in time and I ran into two college girls on vacation. One was very serious, the other rather giggly, but both were remarkably gifted magic users. They helped quite a lot." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "I didn't notice it at the time, but I think one of them was green." He shrugged and went on. "After another hiccup—forward this time, I think—I ran into an Otherside pilot fixing an old-fashioned airplane, who gave me some spare parts. And so on."

"Sounds like you had some pretty far out adventures," said DG.

Ambrose nodded thoughtfully. "I kept wondering how these dimensional differences had come into being. Perhaps there would be a dimension in which, perish the thought, your father never Slipped over from the Otherside. Or one in which the Witch of the Dark was never released from the cave." He stopped abruptly. "I'm sorry, that was tactless." In the silence that followed his comment, Ambrose realized that he was getting a little too warm, now that the fire was burning briskly. He unwound his scarf and pulled off the cap.

There was a collective gasp. The Queen was the first to recover the ability to speak. "Ambrose, dear heart, what happened to you?"

"You must have traveled into the Middle Past at some point," Cain said.

Ambrose turned to Cain, confused. "What?"

Cain nodded toward the top of Ambrose's head. "That punishment—headcasing, they used to call it—hasn't been used for hundreds of years."

Ambrose regarded him for a long moment. "You don't remember?" he finally said, in a voice tinged with uncertainty and a dawning fear.

Cain shook his head.

The princesses remained silent, baffled. The Queen rose and stepped closer to Ambrose. "May I?" she asked, and when he nodded, she took his head in her hands, stooping over him to look closely at the zipper. After a long look, she sighed and released him. "The original incisions are long healed," she said.

"Yes, your Majesty," said Ambrose.

"This didn't happen on his trip," the Queen said to the others.

Cain started. "Then this isn't… you're not… "

Ambrose turned. "I'm so sorry, Cain. I just realized it myself." He took Cain's hands in his own. "I am Ambrose," he said firmly, looking into Cain's eyes, "but I'm not _your_ Ambrose."

Cain bit his lip and looked away, shaken, trying to gather himself, holding Ambrose's hands like a lifeline. _But not my Ambrose_, he reminded himself, and remembered that moment of hesitation before Ambrose had kissed him back.


	3. Chapter 3

Now that Ambrose realized he was not yet home, he noticed things more clearly. The Queen had not dyed her hair, as he had first assumed; she had never given up her magic to save a daughter and so had never gone silver. DG seemed to be at home because she was at home; she had grown up in the O.Z. As for Azkadellia, she had grown up without the shadow of monstrous evil. These were the people he loved as they were meant to be. And Cain—his thoughts ran off the rails as he looked at Cain. He was the only one, thought Ambrose, who seemed as haunted as his counterpart.

"You must be exhausted," Cain said to him. "And it's getting late."

Ambrose nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Yes, but we have so much more to do. For one thing, we need to figure out what happened to your Ambrose. I wonder if Tutor can help."

Cain turned to the Queen. "Your Majesty, may we continue this conversation tomorrow? Perhaps with Tutor—I mean, Professor Patmol—here as well?"

"Of course, Mr. Cain," the Queen said, rising gracefully to her feet. Cain and Ambrose immediately stood as well. She exchanged a look with Cain and addressed her guest. "Ambrose, I would ordinarily offer you quarters befitting a visiting dignitary. However, I'm sure that word has spread rapidly of your return; your counterpart was sadly missed. I don't think my people are ready yet to learn your true identity."

Ambrose looked from one to the other, his weary mind struggling to divine the message behind her words.

Cain took pity on him. "In this dimension, your counterpart and I share living quarters," he said. "Any other arrangement would send gossip flying from the servants' quarters all the way to Finaqua and back." He paused, hesitating. "But if you'd rather be alone…"

Ambrose interrupted him. "I'd really rather not be alone," he said firmly. As a momentary sadness flitted across Cain's face, Ambrose suddenly wondered if he were being too selfish. Surely it must be painful for Cain to see and touch someone who looked exactly like the one he missed so desperately, but who wasn't the same. He realized now why this Cain looked so much like the one he knew. "If you don't mind, that is," he added hastily.

* * *

Cain was planning to make up the couch in their quarters as a spare bed, but somehow he never got around to it. Small talk gradually turned into a lengthy conversation about their respective dimensions; he and Ambrose found themselves mapping out the places where their personal histories matched or diverged.

"What about Adora?" Ambrose asked at one point.

Cain smiled. "There's a name I haven't heard in a couple of decades," he said, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd asked her to marry me just a few days earlier."

"What do you mean?" asked Ambrose.

"My _former_ best friend Zero asked her first," Cain said. "And she said yes. I still don't know which of them I was angrier with." Then he shrugged. "But it all worked out. I didn't want to hang around Central City any more, so I put in for a transfer. The Mystic Man gave me a bang-up recommendation, and I wound up in charge of the security detail for the royal family at Finaqua."

"That's quite a responsible position," said Ambrose.

Cain nodded. "My predecessor apparently didn't think so. Would you believe those little princesses were running around the woods unsupervised all day long? It was my idea to put a guard on them just to keep them from drowning in the lake or being eaten by bears!" He broke off his reminiscences when he saw the shaken look on Ambrose's face. "What?" he asked.

"I can tell you exactly what would have happened if you'd asked Adora a few days earlier," said Ambrose. "You were right about the little princesses…"

By the time he finished, Ambrose was yawning so much that he could hardly put words together, and Cain was struggling to keep his eyelids open. "We'll have to talk about this more tomorrow," Cain said at last.

Ambrose nodded. "Did you say something about a couch?"

Cain looked toward the other room, nodded, and began the arduous process of climbing to his weary feet.

"Oh, never mind," said Ambrose suddenly. "It's a huge bed, and I think I can trust you to be a gentleman."

Cain smiled. "Your—I mean, your counterpart's—pajamas are in the third drawer of that dresser," he said, waving tiredly.

* * *

"Snuggly" was not the word that Ambrose would have used to describe Wyatt Cain in any dimension. In fact, he thought, Cain had a long way to go just to get to "demonstrative." Ambrose was therefore astonished, when he awakened from a troubling dream in the middle of the night, to find Cain sleepily nuzzling the back of his neck. It seemed obvious that Cain was not fully awake, and Ambrose felt guilty accepting a kindness intended for someone else. He tried to persuade himself to move away, but he couldn't bring himself to do it before he fell back to sleep.

He awoke again sometime later to find Cain threading his fingers through his hair; Ambrose could not keep from leaning into the touch, savoring the human contact he had missed for so long. When Cain's unsuspecting fingers ran into the zipper, Ambrose felt a shock go through Cain's body and heard him gasp involuntarily as he startled awake. He then felt Cain move abruptly away, taking warmth and reassurance with him.

Now what to do? Ambrose wondered. He regretted the pain he had caused this Cain by his thoughtless desire not to sleep alone; for a moment he wanted nothing more than to roll over and promise Cain earnestly that he would stop at nothing to get his Ambrose back. Upon consideration, he realized that Cain would probably be embarrassed to learn that Ambrose had been awake and aware of Cain's confusion. Besides, so far he couldn't even get himself home; his promise of assistance would be cold comfort indeed. If he spoke to Cain now, he would make only himself feel better; Cain would feel worse.

Furthermore, he thought, Cain might be suspicious that he had been awake the whole time and had willingly accepted Cain's misdirected affection. Come to think of it, he was wondering the same thing himself. He was still wondering when he fell fast asleep. When he awoke, he found that it was now he who had flung an arm over Cain sometime before dawn.


	4. Chapter 4

Cain walked Ambrose down to breakfast the next morning; a splendid array of food was laid out in a grand room that hadn't yet been restored in Ambrose's dimension. Ambrose nibbled on some fruit while Cain buttered a muffin absentmindedly.

DG bounced in. "Good morning!" she said. "Look at you two, so _quiet_. Don't tell me you ran out of things to talk about." She sat down and reached for the coffeepot.

"Well, actually," Ambrose said, "there's one thing I still don't know." He turned to Cain. "In this dimension, how did you and I originally meet?"

Cain grinned. "Now _that_ 's a story," he said, his earlier awkwardness vanishing. "The first time we met, I didn't even see you. Just heard your voice from the lab. The palace majordomo was taking me around for introductions, and everyone was very friendly and gracious. That is, until we got to your laboratory. She knocked and said, 'Ambrose, I'd like you to meet our new Director of Security.' This ridiculously affected voice hollered back, "I'm not interrupting my very important experiment to trade pleasantries with a _policeman_ , thank you very much!"

Ambrose laughed. "That sounds exactly like something I would have said. I had quite the high opinion of myself back in the day."

"Yes, you did," Cain agreed. "I mean, _he_ did, too." He took a sip of his coffee. "Of course, I couldn't let such an affront pass without some sort of response."

"So what did you do?" asked Ambrose.

"Let me tell him, Mr. Cain!" DG begged, and Cain nodded.

"As one of the new security protocols, Mr. Cain insisted on assigning a personal guard to Az and me," DG began. "That's how we got Madame Tutitia, who was a sweet little old lady with a black belt in everything. I mean, she could kill you with her _eyebrow_. Well, Mr. Cain told Madame Tutitia that Az and I should visit the laboratory complex for at least fifteen minutes every afternoon." DG giggled. "We had never been allowed there before, and we drove you—I mean, _our_ you—absolutely crazy! And you couldn't get around Madame, because, she said," DG adopted a cracked, elderly-sounding voice, "you didn't have the authority to countermand someone of Mr. Cain's _rank_." Cain smiled.

So did Ambrose. "Oh, I would have _hated_ that!" he exclaimed.

"It took less than a week," said Cain, "before your counterpart sought me out, begged my pardon, and introduced himself with the absolutely stiffest, most formal palace manners he could muster. Once that was settled, we didn't talk to each other for, oh, at least a month. We would bump into each other every now and then at various official functions and seethe quietly."

Cain's eyes looked far away as he looked back into the past. "Then we both attended an event in Central City—some sort of official opening, I think. Yes, that was it. The new alchemical wing at Oz University was being named after your counterpart."

"No less than he deserved, I'm sure," Ambrose put in.

"There was a dissident who got past my guards and tried to assassinate the guest of honor." Cain stopped for a moment, taking another sip of coffee. "I got in his way."

Ambrose stared. "He shot you?"

Cain nodded. "I was wearing a bulletproof vest, of course, but I got knocked down pretty hard. Had a whacking great bruise for weeks." He moved his hand automatically to the spot, and Ambrose felt a stab of recognition; it was the same spot where Jeb's toy horse had stopped Zero's bullet, back in his own dimension. Cain continued. "I remember lying flat on the floor, trying to catch my breath. I could hear the guards wrestling the gun away from the guy and dragging him away, and then I felt someone slapping my face. I opened my eyes and there you were, I mean, there he was, kneeling next to me on the floor. 'You all right, sweetheart?' he said. I couldn't help but smile. And that's when we became friends."

Ambrose smiled sadly. _So near and yet so far_ , he thought. Everything was familiar, yet nothing was the same.

Cain reached out and touched his arm. "You still with us?" he asked with a kind smile.

"I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't home," Ambrose said. "It's a problem I haven't had in any of the other dimensions I've visited. It's… unsettling."

DG came around behind his chair and hugged him, resting her head against his. "I hope you can get to your own home soon," she said.


	5. Chapter 5

Shortly after breakfast, Cain and Ambrose returned to the Queen's parlor, where she was talking quietly with Professor Patmol. After the customary greetings and introductions, the professor turned to Ambrose. "I hear you have a very interesting conundrum for us."

Ambrose shook Patmol's hand. "I'm looking forward to getting your insights," he said, scrutinizing the professor carefully. The Tutor whom Ambrose knew had been a double agent, pretending to spy on DG and her friends for the Sorceress in order to buy time for DG to recover her magic… or so he claimed. Ambrose had finally decided that his Tutor was trustworthy, and he hoped the same was true of this one. He found himself half-dreading Raw's arrival; he had already met too many strangers wearing the faces of his friends.

The door opened; a footman came in and announced, "The Viewer Ambassador, your Majesty." Raw entered and bowed to the Queen.

 _If I'd seen him first, I would have known right away that I wasn't in my own dimension_ , thought Ambrose, observing the confident, well-groomed Viewer, whose elegant ambassadorial robes sat naturally on his dignified frame.

Raw bowed to the Queen and turned to Cain and Ambrose; his expressive face showed sudden astonishment. "Glitch!" he exclaimed. "What are _you_ doing _here_?" He held out both arms and pulled Ambrose into a friendly hug. _No one in this dimension has ever heard that nickname_ , thought Ambrose. Beyond all expectation or even reason, this must be his own Raw.

"I gather the two of you know each other," said the Queen.

"In my dimension, your Majesty, Raw was instrumental in restoring your counterpart to the throne," Ambrose said.

She smiled. "I'm sure she has already conveyed her thanks, but I can only say how pleased I am at this affirmation of your friendship and loyalty."

"You are most welcome," said Raw graciously.

Patmol spoke up. "Your Majesty, I wonder if the Ambassador, Ambrose, and I might be excused? We have some complicated matters to sort out."

"Of course," the Queen said. "I have duties elsewhere. Please inform me when you have completed your deliberations." She swept out with Cain following in her wake.

Ambrose sank into a chair and stared at Raw. "How do you...? What kind of...?" He gathered his mental resources and started over one more time. "You're not just the _counterpart_ of my Raw, are you?" he asked. "You _are_ my Raw."

"Yes. No. Sort of." Raw shrugged expressively.

"Let me put it this way," said Patmol. "Viewers exist in several dimensions at once. That's where a number of their powers come from."

"You mean, the whole time you were tromping around my O.Z. in tatters, you were also striding around here in your robes of office?"

"Not exactly," said Raw, smiling.

Patmol looked thoughtful. "The Ambassador's people have an intuitive understanding of their experience that is difficult to express in human language. The closest I can come is to say that your Raw and this one, and several others in closely parallel dimensions, share a common consciousness." He held up a hand, seeing that Ambrose was bursting with questions. "You might ask how Viewers can cope with the overload of information from all their experiences, and I can only answer that they don't understand how we humans make do with so little."

Raw nodded. "It's the way we are."

"Much as I would love to satisfy your curiosity," Patmol continued, "I think we have a more immediate problem to solve. You need to get back to your own dimension, and we need to get our own Ambrose back. I realize you went through the whole story yesterday, but if you wouldn't mind repeating it for the Ambassador and me, we'd like to have all the details."

"Of course," replied Ambrose, and launched into his narrative again. When he was finished, both Raw and Patmol were silent. Ambrose looked from one to the other. "Do you think your Ambrose is in _my_ O.Z.?"

Patmol looked at Raw. Raw concentrated for a moment and shook his head. "Still too far away."

"Our Ambrose is a bit more pampered than you are," said Patmol. "Not quite as resourceful."

Ambrose touched his zipper ruefully. "I suppose being headcased and turned adrift had advantages that I didn't realize at the time."

"That device of yours," Patmol asked, "could we see it? It might be helpful." Ambrose handed Patmol the TAHDL; Patmol studied it briefly and passed it to Raw. "From your story, it sounds as if this was the catalyst."

"This alone," said Raw slowly, gazing intently into the shifting colors, "is not strong enough to cause such a dislocation."

"Could it have been the combined effect of the Ambroses in both dimensions tinkering with two such devices at the same time?" asked Patmol.

Raw thought for a moment, then nodded. "The effect would be synergetic. Much more than twice the power."

"I've studied a lot of strange theories in my time," Ambrose broke in, "but this whole cross-dimensional travel thing is a complete mystery. How does it work?"

Patmol turned to Raw. "He's been trapped for months wandering across multiple dimensions, he finally finds people who understand the phenomenon, and his first question isn't 'how do I get home?', but 'how does it work?'"

Raw looked up briefly from his close inspection of the TAHDL and grinned. "He has much in common with the Ambrose we know," he said.

"So I've been told," said Ambrose. He thought of Cain, and a momentary pang surprised him. "In some ways, at least."

"The closest I can come to a brief explanation," said Patmol, "is to say that there's a fissure in the ontological matrix from which the O.Z. developed that resulted in numerous parallel dimensions of varying degrees of similarity. Those who study these things in depth have told me that it's actually easier to account for the differences than the similarities. That is, it's simpler to explain the multiplicity of dimensions than to explain how certain congruities are maintained among them without any apparent interference with physical laws or free will."

"That makes sense," said Ambrose. He thought for a moment. "Are there multiple corresponding Othersides as well?"

"Possibly. Not my specialty. And the Ambassador here is more of a physician than a metaphysician."

"Yes," Raw agreed. He gestured to the TAHDL. "But... I can help find the right setting to get you home."

Ambrose's face lit with a joyful smile. "Really?"

Raw nodded. "Really."

Ambrose suddenly looked down, too shy to ask his next question. Raw reached out and patted his cheek gently. Ambrose looked up to see Raw smiling. "As for you and your Cain, you'll have to find out for yourself."


	6. Chapter 6

Once again, Ambrose found himself walking through the bitter cold up to the gates of the palace. The guards startled to attention when they recognized him; he saw one of them reaching for the telephone to call the palace. Then behind them, he saw a figure in a gray overcoat and hat, pushing past the guards and coming straight toward him. Hands gripped his shoulders, worried ice-blue eyes looked directly into his, and Cain's voice said "It _is_ you" in exactly the same way as before, fear and relief and desperate affection all mixed together. Ambrose found himself wrapped in a warm embrace and returned it, finally allowing himself to believe that this was _his_ Cain, not the counterpart who belonged to someone else.

"I have about a hundred questions," Cain said, his voice catching slightly as he released Ambrose. "Are you okay?"

Ambrose smiled. "I have about a hundred answers," he said. "And I'm fine." He put his hand on Cain's arm to reassure him. He allowed himself to relax the tiniest bit and suddenly realized that he had been running on fear and adrenalin for far too long. He staggered slightly.

"Lean on me," Cain said, and they began walking up toward the palace together. Ambrose suddenly stopped after a few steps. "What is it?" asked Cain. "Is something wrong?"

Ambrose turned toward him. _This is where you kissed me_ , he thought, _except it wasn't really you._ He couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud.

Cain regarded him with concern. Pulling the glove off his free hand, he laid the palm of his hand against Ambrose's cheek. "You sure you're okay? No fever?" he said. It seemed as if he was about to say something else, but then his eyes caught Ambrose's and he stopped.

For a moment the world around them faded and it was just the two of them standing in a circle of pale sunslight with the snow glittering around them.

Then the moment was gone; Cain looked away, as if slightly embarrassed, and Ambrose felt him beginning to move his hand away as well.

"Wait," Ambrose said, putting his hand over Cain's. "Cain, I—"

Cain looked back at him and it was Ambrose's turn to stop speaking.

Raw's words came back to him. _You'll have to find out for yourself._ Ambrose leaned forward and kissed Cain.

There was no hesitation. Cain kissed him back with a fierce energy that made Ambrose wonder how he could ever have mistaken the more easy-going Cain of the other dimension for the Cain he knew.

It was too cold to stand still for long, even in such a pleasant embrace, and the two reluctantly separated after a few moments. "I'm guessing you're glad to see me," Ambrose said; Cain tried to scowl but wound up chuckling instead.

They didn't finish their walk alone; while they were still a short way from the palace, they saw DG come tearing out the door, followed closely by Azkadellia. Servants trailed farther behind, holding out coats and hats in vain.

He had a sense of deja vu as the princesses threw themselves into his arms; he embraced them both and smiled. Here was the fragile, still-recovering Azkadellia, the unsettled, impatient DG still finding her way. Looking up, he saw his silver-haired queen standing on the palace steps, a smiling, scruffy Raw at her side.

This was his dimension; he was home where he belonged. These were his people, all of them broken, mended, yet stronger in ways that their counterparts could not begin to imagine. He gently disengaged himself from the princesses and bowed to the Queen. "Your Majesty," he said, taking the hand she put out and kissing it formally before she laughed and pulled him into a hug.

"Let's go inside," she said. "It's freezing out here."

She led the way into the parlor, where the walls gleamed with new paint, and velvet throws disguised the battered furniture. Ambrose realized that everyone was looking at him expectantly, waiting to hear his story. "You won't believe where I've been," he began, turning slowly to look at each of his friends. "But you were there, and you, and you..." Completing the circle, he turned back to Cain, still by his side. Taking both of Cain's hands in his own, he said, "I think I missed you most of all."


End file.
